In an extraordinary comeback, a Queensland family have won a prestigious national award just five years after their prawn farming operation was wiped out by disease.
In 2016 the Zipf family's $1.5 million dollar prawn crop was destroyed and its hatchery, which supplied other growers, was closed after the discovery of the highly infectious and deadly-to-prawns white spot disease.
They took a huge gamble by re-purposing empty prawn ponds and equipment to farm two fish species new to Australian aquaculture.
If it failed, Serena Zipf said the family stood to lose "almost everything".
"We had no idea whether we could grow it, we had no idea if anyone would want to buy it, and we had no idea how it would taste. One way of answering those questions was just do it," Ms Zipf said.
National recognition
In accepting the Producer of the Year trophy at Delicious Magazine's annual Produce Awards, Ms Zipf praised her team at Rocky Point Aquaculture.
They knew little about farming cobia or Queensland grouper, yet quickly developed two successful growing systems.
"To be able to say to them you are the best of the best, we're the producers of the year for Australia, for the team, it's been amazing," Ms Zipf said.
What made the win even sweeter was the operation had just emerged from its pilot phase.
Award judge Sydney chef Matt Moran said it was vital Australia's top food producers were acknowledged.
"Rocky Point Aquaculture impressed us with their world-class sustainability practices and the top-quality produce these practices are resulting in," Mr Moran said.
White spot disease
The highly infectious white spot virus wiped out all seven prawn farms on the Logan River south of Brisbane in late 2016, the first time the feared disease had been detected in Australia.
Judging the risk of re-infection to be too high, the Zipfs got out of the industry.
They bulldozed their small prawn ponds to create two large lakes, which they stocked with cobia, a fish chefs call the "wagyu of the sea", and Queensland Grouper, a prized banquet fish in China.
Despite working in aquaculture for 25 years, farm manager Brad Cherrie said the challenge of farming tropical ocean fish in the subtropics was immense.
"I thought we were kidding ourselves to be able to grow the fish in lakes like this," he said.
"Compared to prawns, fish are a more complex animal, more complex circulatory systems, digestive systems, everything, so we basically learnt on the run."
After her team worked out how to farm them, Ms Zipf set out to convince chefs to buy her expensive, relatively unknown fish.
"We put it in front of chefs and the reaction was just extraordinary, and that's what gave us the encouragement to continue," said Ms Zipf.
Another trade-halting outbreak
The Zipfs had just started to make inroads when another disease outbreak rocked the business.
"When COVID-19 broke, every single restaurant in the country shut down, I'd just spent everything growing a crop I didn't have a customer for," Ms Zipf said.
Thankfully most of her high-end restaurant customers pivoted to takeaway meals, and fish sales resumed.
Now the focus is on expansion.
"The first year, we grew about 25 tonnes, but this year we'll do 100 tonne and next year we should double that," Mr Cherrie said.
As well as the government scientists who provided valuable advice, Ms Zipf paid tribute to the company's feed supplier which shared her sustainability values.
"We're getting a lot of incredible gains in efficiency with the new feed formulations we've worked on with the company in Tasmania. That's been an incredible collaboration and they've been very kind to us because we're a very small part of the industry," Ms Zipf said.
Mr Cherrie says not many people could have recovered from the devastation of white spot so quickly.
"Nine out of 10 people just would have walked away and not done what we've done, but Serena is truly tenacious. Once she gets something in her head, she'll see it through," Mr Cherrie said.
The next challenge was keeping the lakes clean as fish numbers rise, but Ms Zipf plans to grow oysters, even seaweed, alongside the fish.
"We want to use natural methods to keep the waterway pristine, I'd love to see us develop this into a world class facility to see innovations come out of here that leads the planet in how we treat waste and how we farm more sustainably and ethically," she said.
"That would be the dream."
Watch this story on ABC TV's Landline at 12:30pm on Sunday, or on ABC iview.
